North Texas shopping center traffic holds up through Christmas week – The Dallas Morning News

North Texas shopping center traffic holds up through Christmas week – The Dallas Morning News

Last-minute shopping in stores leading up to Christmas could be seen in steady crowds last week from Allen and Frisco to Dallas and Grand Prairie.

Customer traffic was up week-over-week at six of 10 major shopping centers in Dallas and Collin counties for the week that ended Sunday, according to data gathered by the intelligence firm Placer.ai for The Dallas Morning News.

Traffic has been recovering faster at outdoor centers than at enclosed malls. Last week, Allen Premium Outlets and Grand Prairie Premium Outlets came closest to holiday shopper counts for the same week of 2019, down 15.1% and 5.7% respectively, according to the Placer.ai report.

The luxury shopping center Highland Park Village was still an outlier, with traffic up (+4.7%) from the same week a year earlier.

Town East Mall in Mesquite, a classic example of the suburban centers that have been under a spotlight by the retail and real estate industries, showed it still has a strong following, with its traffic down only 16.4% last week from the same week in 2019.

The 10 shopping centers tracked were selected for their geography and type. While customer counts are a key measure of shopping center performance, they don’t always give a clear picture of sales volumes.

Anecdotal evidence showed throughout the holiday season that shoppers who ventured out were buying. There was less browsing and hanging out at malls with the out-of-town visitors.

A couple of enclosed malls that diversified in recent years to add family-friendly entertainment venues have had slightly bigger year-over-year declines. The pandemic has temporarily hurt that strategy at Grapevine Mills and Stonebriar Centre.

Grapevine Mills has added Legoland, Sea Life Aquarium and Peppa Pig World of Play. Stonebriar opened the first U.S. location for KidZania, a life-size play town, in 2019. Operating at reduced hours and with occupancy limits during the pandemic has contributed to reduced traffic.

Catch up on the prior weekly reports: